British Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron has been pushing for weeks to toughen London’s stance on Israel, but his efforts have run into resistance from Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and the inclination of the Tory press to be more sympathetic to the arguments of the Government of Benjamin Netanyahu than with the criticism of pro-Palestinian sectors.
The pressure has now increased significantly after the death of three citizens of (and others from Australia, Canada, Poland, Palestine and one with dual US-Canadian nationality) in the Israeli drone attack on a convoy of ‘humanitarian aid from the American agency World Central Kitchen, which could mean a turning point in the perception of public opinion.
Evidence of this is a seventeen-page letter sent to Sunak by no less than six hundred lawyers and legal experts, including three former Supreme Court judges and several more from lower courts, who encourage the suspension of the sale of weapons in Tel-Aviv because “it constitutes a violation of international law given the plausible danger that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, and Britain has a legal obligation to do everything possible to prevent it”.
The missive describes the humanitarian situation as “catastrophic” and asks the Government, in addition to suspending the sale of weapons, to take measures to achieve a ceasefire and the end of barriers to the entry and distribution of food and other forms of assistance, more in line with the positions defended in the EU by Spain and Ireland.
Lawyers and judges (among them the former president of the Supreme Court Lady Hale) believe that there have been “significant changes” recently that justify a stronger policy from London towards Israel, such as the provisional orders issued by the International Court of Justice, the raising the official death toll in Gaza to more than 32,000 Palestinians, the threat of imminent starvation, the blockade on the entry of aid, the destruction of hospitals and health centers, the death of humanitarian workers and the ·legations of torture and vexatious treatment of prisoners.
Despite the Daily Telegraph and conservative media openly aligning themselves with Netanyahu after the October 7 Hamas massacre, and their justification of the Israeli response, a growing number of conservative politicians are demanding Sunak clearly call for a halt to fire and pressure Israel with the suspension of arms sales, despite the fact that the UK supplies a very small amount compared to the US, and less than Germany and Italy. The Scottish First Minister, Humza Yousaf, has warned that London could be complicit in the killing of innocent civilians.
